“Eragon” is one of the biggest fantasy book series to come out of the last 10 years, second only to the little dipshit with the lightning bolt in his face. Written by some teenager, the stories of a dragon riding 17 year-old Aryan kid named Eragon have had healthy runs on the New York Times Best Seller List, sold some huge number of copies (I’m not interested enough to Google that number at the moment) and, yes, warranted a movie series based on those same exploits. It’s gotta have some kind of supernatural power behind it too if it’s strong enough to pull in a supporting cast of multiple award winners and nominees the likes of Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Robert Carlyle, Rachel Weisz and Djimon Hounsou! However, as we all know, even the greatest cast doesn’t mean shit in the face of bad writing and directing, so what will happen with Eragon? Let’s find out…
Okay, the story’s fairly generic for anyone who’s read, played or viewed fantasy material in their time. The almost-old-enough-to-be-drafted boy Eragon (first timer Edward Speleers) is a resident of the kingdom of Alagaesia, where the evil king Galbatorix (John Malkovich) rules with the clichéd iron fist and has made it mandate that every able bodied male is to serve in his army upon their 18th birthday in his war against rebel forces known as the Vardan. The Vardan dislike King ‘Rix because he was once a member of a legendary group of warriors who rode dragons into battle, aptly called Dragon Riders. Okay, so that’s not why they hate him. They hate him because he became power hungry and turned evil, killing off his fellow Riders and usurping the throne, plunging the kingdom into darkness and suffering. Blah blah blah, you get the idea. Anyway, turns out there’s one dragon egg left and it’s been passed around for a thousand years amongst the Vardan, unable to hatch until it comes into the presence of some hero of destiny. Enter Eragon, who finds the egg while out hunting (it’s not that simple, but I’m trying to keep it short here). It hatches almost immediately into the blue serpentine Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz) and our young hero is now saddled with saving the kingdom from its evil dictator. Can he do it alone? Probably not, as he’ll be helped along his journey by the mysteriously skilled warrior drifter known as Brom (Jeremy Irons), the Elven she-warrior Arya (Sienna Guillory), the dark and brooding anti-hero pretty boy rebel Murtagh and, of course, the Vardan rebellion and it’s leader Ajihad (Djimon Hounsou). He’ll need all that back-up too, cuz he’s going to be fighting not only big bad ‘Rixle Pants, but his evil shade sorcerer lackey Durza (Robert Carlyle), an army of berserker warriors called Urgles, the ghoulish hulking ninja zombie assassins known as the Ra’zac (voiceless beasts made of bugs and crud) and ‘Rixy Boy’s big evil looking super dragon of doom!... whose name we don’t learn and whom we only see for all of 3 angry seconds. Meh.
The direction of the movie was fine, even impressive at points (like the final battle sequence). In this age of post-Lord of the Rings type fantasy, epic scale scenery shots and battle sequences are nothing new. First time director Stefen Fangmeier obviously benefits from his years of visual effects experience working on movies directed by the likes of James Cameron, Stephen Spielberg and Wolfgang Petersen for the last 15 years, and I don’t mean to take anything away from his effort, but in a movie where everything else feels like redressed material it weighs on my opinion. The story of the farm boy-turned-legendary hero is the most historically overdone plot in all of geekdom. Luke Skywalker did it in Star Wars, Link’s done it a hundred times in the “Legend of Zelda” games and, yes, Frodo Baggins did it in “The Lord of the Rings”. You know what else was in “The Lord of the Rings”? Well, there was the big evil king, the fiendish sorcerer henchman, the sexy elf girl, the rebellion trying to take down the evil overlord, the fallen drifter hero trying to make up for his past mistakes and the army of unstoppable berserker behemoths (known by the actually intimidating title or “Urukai” as opposed to the sissy-pants title of “Urgles” which, incidentally, makes them sound like they keep timeshares down in Fraggle Rock). Shit, am I also the only one who noticed the similarities between the names Eragon and Aragorn!? Remind me why the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien isn’t suing this kid again?
Beyond the story and direction everything else was tolerable, occasionally admirable even. The CGI effects were very well done, the score was fair (though not exactly stirring or overwhelming) and the acting was more on the upside than the down. I dug Irons in the “experienced but tragic teacher with a good heart” role, I thought Speleers was actually very good as the brash young last of the Dragon Riders (though some of his lines were just plain corny [which the Native Americans would call “maizey”], but that’s not his fault) without defaulting into “obnoxious little shithead” territory too much (Hayden Christensen, I’m looking at you!). Robert Carlyle wasn’t bad at all as Durza, though his makeup looked a little too overdone at times. Rachel Weisz did well as the voice of Saphira, though the name “Saphira” is really grating, especially given the dragon’s blue hue. Were we all that unoriginal at 16?! Bah. Anyway, the only efforts I didn’t appreciate were Sienna Guillory who emotes about as well as my girlfriend’s cardboard stand-up of Orlando Bloom (double burn!) and Djimon Hounsou who seems to be struggling with all his might to sound like he doesn’t have any kind of accent. The man can act and like a serious fucking thespian at that! He’s dick slapped the critics upside the head numerous times before, including his most recent display in Blood Diamond, but if this is the best he can do when someone asks him to “tone down the African thing”, I smell a long future of typecasting for this man. As for Malkovich, well, I still have no idea if I’m supposed to like what little he’s done for the movie so far or hate it. Part of me thinks he’s being straight and that he’s supposed to be intense and simple in his evilocity, but another part of me is suspicious that he’s putting absolutely no effort into the part and is just there to pick up his rent check. He’s a hard man to read and the part itself just hasn’t been significant enough up to this point to really betray exactly what type of character this ‘Rixenheimer guy is supposed to be.
Overall the big killer of this movie was the obvious attempts to cut down the source material enough to fit it all into a family friendly running time of a little over 100 minutes which, if the little snot-nosed future fruits of America sitting behind were any indication, is still a little long to keep the attention of the family crowd the movie’s trying to appeal to. Everything feels very rushed throughout and the edits themselves were really choppy, jumping with the grace of a greased troupe of sumo wrestlers trying to do Swan Lake. Unless your hearing aid needs new batteries, the audio side effects of this will further strengthen my case. Who knows, maybe with another hour or so to develop things a little further it would’ve helped flesh out the movie… then again, I doubt I would’ve been interested enough to sit through another hour anyway, so I’m actually kind of glad they didn’t bother.
For those of you interested in the books that the movie is based on and whether or not the cinematic experience lives up to the written version, my Evil Dead Bride has read the first two books of the series (the first of which this movie is based upon). She was the reason I went to see this (on opening day no less) and even though she knew more about what was going on that I did, her opinion echoed my own. She feels there was a lot of material in the book that was just gleemed over or excluded altogether in favor of a more appetizing running time and that the people at 20th Century Fox were more interested in trying to make a fast opening weekend buck off of the name recognition rather than putting the time and effort into making a faithful screen adaptation. It’s not the first time it’s happened, it’s not the last time it will happen and, sadly, I don’t think anyone will be surprised at this long acknowledged truth: Hollywood hates books.
